One of the new items in SQL Server 2016 is the super awesome time_zone_info table.  When I heard about it, I started to think about all the cool things that it could help me do.  First, let’s look at the table.

SELECT *
FROM [sys].[time_zone_info]

Yes, it is 132 rows of magic! Now that we have this super cool table, how do we use it? Let’s pretend that my data is time-stamped in US Mountain Standard Time, but I want to display it in Western Australia Standard Time.  I would do it like this:

SELECT GETDATE() AS GETDATE_Time,
 GETDATE() AT TIME ZONE 'US Mountain Standard Time' AS Mountain_Time,
 GETDATE() AT TIME ZONE 'US Mountain Standard Time' 
   AT TIME ZONE 'W. Australia Standard Time'AS W_Aus_Time;

I am including the GetDate column so you can see that GetDate is using my time zone, but I have to tell it what time zone it is before I can convert it to another one.

Caution: If I put in the Hawaiian time zone instead of Mountain time on the GetDate, SQL won’t correct me, it will just do the math like a good little system and assume I know what time zone I am using to start.

I am am really loving the new features in SQL 2016! I hope you are enjoying it too!

This posts song is Cleopatra by The Lumineers